


Epilogue: Closure

by nerdy-flower (baconnegg)



Series: The Shimada Brothers Need Healing [14]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Aging, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brothers being good brothers, Domestic Fluff, Family Bonding, Found family coming together, Grief/Mourning, In a cathartic kinda way, In a sense, Lots of love amongst the sadness, M/M, Maya's all grown up, Memorials, Moving through grief and heartache together, Multi, Old Men, POV Hanzo Shimada, The Shimada McCree Tekharthas in their sunset years, The gang is old but still themselves, This is sad af ngl, but the ending is hopeful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22381408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baconnegg/pseuds/nerdy-flower
Summary: In a surprising turn of events, Jesse McCree lives long enough to die with his boots off.
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: The Shimada Brothers Need Healing [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/936354
Comments: 28
Kudos: 47





	Epilogue: Closure

_He was my North, my South, my East and West,  
My working week and my Sunday rest,   
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;   
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.   
-W.H. Auden_

*** 

Their farmhouse is seldom quiet these days, but when it is, it's far too quiet. 

It ceased being a true farmhouse long before they bought it, the back fields sold off to neighbouring farmers, but the yard is large and the facade is quaint. Still close enough to the city that the bus runs by every hour until six. A few chickens live in an ornate, solar-heated coop out back, exchanging their fresh eggs for seed. The garden is overgrown, half-reclaimed by nature, but still verdant and blooming at winter's end. Jesse always called it their farmhouse, tending it diligently as his knuckles gnarled and his hair greyed. 

Their niece has taken over the majority of the tending in the two years since Jesse got sick, and Hanzo is forever unsure of how to properly thank her. 

“I can make dinner, Oji-san.” Maya raises her voice over the spray of the sink, rinsing sweat and grit from her hands. “I don't mind.” 

“You know I'm protective of my miso,” Hanzo jokes, one hand on the wooden stirring spoon and the other leaning heavily on his cane, one of their adopted strays weaving between his ankles. “You can set up the tables, if you want.” 

“Alright.” Maya dries her hands quickly, tucking four TV trays under one arm and thumping towards the living room. She's grown strong, with powerful limbs that let her scale cliffs in the prairie badlands, digging for prehistoric life under the sun that leaves her with a permanent farmer's tan, which her Uncle Jesse is quite impressed by. 

It's easier for them to eat in the front room, the dining room mostly used for storage and handicrafts now. Maya sets Zenyatta's table to one side of his power chair and helps Genji out of his and onto the couch. Hanzo's supposed to have one, but in his usual obstinance, he prefers grinding his joints to dust over admitting any sort of defeat. 

“Never change, darlin',” Jesse still says from time to time, when his throat and the fog of medicine permit him to speak. 

They eat and watch a baseball game in peaceable silence. Hanzo warms up another bowl and takes it down to their guest-turned-hospice room. The support worker won't be in for another hour and besides, he likes doing this for him. Jesse doesn't always eat, so Hanzo always makes sure the food is good, just in case. 

After the bright young woman in teal scrubs leaves, Hanzo tucks himself into the oversized recliner beside Jesse's bed, reaching out to rest a hand on his forearm so as not to bother the IV sticking out of the gauze on his hand. 

Jesse ate at least some of the soup, so he's perked up a little, turning his reamy eyes over to Hanzo. “I love you. You know that, right?” 

“Of course I do.” Hanzo chuckles, settling his old bones as comfortably as he can. “Not as much as I love you.” 

“Bullshit,” Jesse scoffs, smiling one moment and dozing off the next. His hair is a spray of silver and brown against the cream of the pillow. His freckled cheeks sink in, his chest rises slow, and his body, unhappily thinned by illness, looks frail under the quilt. The girthy metal tank hisses in the corner, pushing oxygen through the cannula draped across his top lip. 

Jesse had spent most of last summer in the hospital, a thoroughly miserable venture for all involved. This is better, at least. This is his home. 

When the nurse comes in the morning, Jesse isn't able to eat breakfast. When he can't take dinner either, Hanzo makes up the basement room with Maya's help and phones Fareeha. 

None of them are pretending. They are cresting the same wave as the generation before them, starting with Reinhardt and ending with Ana. It will crash, as exhausting and heartbreaking for the ones they leave behind as it was for them, but it is inevitable. 

Angela went first, almost ten years prior, leaving a saintly rift in all their lives but none more so than Fareeha. Satya had stepped into that void, the two having grown close after decades of mismatched family gatherings. Hanzo accepts her quick hug as the pair step through the door, endlessly grateful to his beloved business partner for not letting their favourite lionheart go home alone. 

Indeed, after bearing witness to the fits of despair Zenyatta fell into after Mondatta's suitably-peaceful death, Hanzo would otherwise be very worried for her. 

Zen is now able to hold space with the ease of an old god holding up the world, but being older and wiser hasn't made any of them better at feelings. Hanzo is unable to weep before anyone save the guest room ceiling and quite honestly, he doesn't feel like the need. He is numb, frozen outside of time and only able to glitch into reality during his various daily routines. 

“Did I tell you about the time Jesse almost killed me?” Fareeha asks, sipping a latte, stiff shoulders framed by Satya's bionic arm. 

“Which time?” Satya quips back, trying to politely pet their other, droolier stray without encouraging it to crawl onto her lap. 

“Pft, good point. I mean the time we tried to run away by jumping on the side of a freight train.” 

“Oh, goodness!” Zenyatta gasps, though his laugh is coloured with curious mischief. “What brought on that ridiculous idea?” 

“I don't know! We were grounded or something, it seemed pretty reasonable at the time. Mum only found out we'd hitchhiked back, or she really would have killed us.” 

Hanzo quietly lets Fareeha into the caretaking cycles of turning, washing, and dressing, with some hesitance. He's relieved that he and Genji are close enough in age and health that this won't fall on him should Hanzo turn palliative. Though, he would have gladly done this for his parents, had he been given the chance. 

Days pass and Jesse eats nothing, drinks little. As the room fills with flowers, Hanzo takes to wetting his lips for him, watching his face for even minute signs of pain. More than age, there is disease in him that is better left untreated than cured. Fareeha sits next to Hanzo at Jesse's bedside, keeping watch after a difficult afternoon, and her eyes well up as if she's no longer a decorated veteran, but a little girl once again. 

They had spoken long before this, when Jesse needed a knee replacement shortly after turning fifty and there was uncomfortable paperwork to fill out. Jesse had told him, in his plain and honest way, that he wanted to go as peacefully as fate would permit. Not coaxed into an overextended husk in a hospital ward, not kept alive by machines, he wanted to die in a comfortable place with the windows open. 

After the half-century of happiness Jesse has given him, Hanzo can at least give him that. 

It's deliciously warm outside, almost summery as April winds down. Friends come in and out, with covered dishes and quiet requests for moments with Jesse. There's always an orange robe fluttering by, most often Maya's foster daughters, newly-minted adults living as Shambali postulants under Tshering's steady, guiding hand. 

The balance between pain management and letting their friends and family have meaningful time with their beloved cowboy is persistently difficult. His husband worked hard all his life and gave so much, Hanzo only wants him to be comfortable. 

So he's surprised to hear Jesse's voice late one night, as he lays half-asleep in the recliner. “You awake, sugar?” 

“Yes.” Hanzo sits up as quickly as he can, back and hips complaining loudly. “What do you need?” 

“Nothin', nothin', just- can you come here?” Jesse gestures vaguely to the bed. “I know it's not comfortable, but just for a little bit-” 

“Of course.” Hanzo stands, the sleeves of his newest legs keep his stumps from breaking down, so he doesn't bother taking them off at night. He climbs in on Jesse's left, his metal arm having been set on its charger some weeks ago, and cuddles close beneath the soft cotton sheets. 

They lay there some moments, feeling the warmth of each other and the pulse of their bodies. Jesse finally speaks, smokey voice gone all raspy. “Haven't looked in the mirror in a while- am I still handsome?” 

“Absolutely.” Hanzo laughs, straightening his head on the pillow and lifting a hand to caress Jesse's beard, losing himself in the roughness of it. “That's the worst thing about you.” 

“Says the goddamned model.” The two of them scoff and snort, chuckling low until Jesse shifts and reaches over to draw his fingers through Hanzo's long white hair. The look in his glassy brown eyes is ineffably tender, piercing straight through Hanzo's heart. He sighs after a few passes, letting his hand rest along Hanzo's jaw. “I'm so tired, darlin'.” 

He shuts his eyes in turn, the darkness cradling them. “I know.” 

“Never thought I'd make it this long, not in a million years,” Jesse muses, half in disbelief. Hanzo opens his eyes again when a thumb sweeps across his cheek and finds that smile, oh, that smile- “But you, I want you to carry on a little longer. I can see a spark in your eyes still, you ain't done yet.” 

“How long? I'm not actually a vampire, you know.” 

They snicker again, and pass an hour or so like that, chuckling and whispering and caressing. Jesse's at his most alert in months, and unspoken, they both recognize the resurgence for what it is. 

“Wherever you end up, I will find you,” Hanzo promises into the time-roughened heat of Jesse's lips. “If it takes a thousand years, if it takes another lifetime, I will return to you.” 

“I never doubted that,” Jesse says against his brow, low and rich. “You've loved me so well, I think your atoms'll chase mine down if that's how we end up.” 

He laughs softly, only a little broken. “Maybe our remaining molecules could go to space together, an existential holiday.” 

Jesse laughs too, just as sweet as when they were thirty. “I'd like that, honeybee, I really would.” 

Morning comes and Jesse shivers in pain, twitching for relief. Hanzo is quick to summon the nurse. 

After that, Jesse no longer drinks or responds, he only rests. The cycles of life's necessities grind to a halt. He is never left alone, they all take their turns, stroking his arm and keeping their quiet, separate vigils. 

“I'm going for a walk.” Fareeha stands somewhat shakily after a morning spent watching Jesse's body go through what Doctor Ziegler would have called Cheynes-Stokes respirations. She squeezes Hanzo's shoulder briefly. “I'll be back.” 

He only nods, hearing rather than seeing her leave. Jesse's hand in snug in his, the windows wide open with the distant sounds of farms and the road floating in on a warm, fluttering breeze. He's so glad it isn't raining. 

“It's okay, Jess, I'm here.” Hanzo tucks Jesse's red serape tighter around his shoulders, his fingers growing colder by the hour. “I won't leave, I promise. I'm not going anywhere.” 

He draws closer, bending to kiss Jesse's brow. Though his skin is paling, his scent remains the same, untouched by medicinal miasma. “I'll hear you in every song and see you in every dream, nothing will keep you from my thoughts.” 

Tears drip on scruffy cheeks and Hanzo quickly brushes them away. “It's a beautiful day outside, Jesse. Just like you wanted.” He chokes, spares a glance to where their chickens cluck and squirrels race each other across the old cattle fence, then kisses his eyes as Jesse was so fond of doing to him. “There is nowhere else I would have rather spent my life than at your side. I wish I could have made you understand how unfathomably good you are, how happy you made me every day.” 

Jesse draws in another rattling breath, lapsing into another apnea. Hanzo presses their foreheads together, his heart heaving every inch of his body forward, knobby hand squeezing Jesse's fingers tight. “We will be alright, my love. You have done enough, you can rest now.” 

Jesse McCree dies on an otherwise perfect spring afternoon, surrounded by all who love him and still live, the curtains blown open and the cats curled up at his sock feet. Widowed and bereaved, they gather the younger ones close and weep while the compassionate, well-dressed men from the funeral home come to collect him and leave the cremation container behind. 

With insufficient tears shed and the stove cold and unused, Lúcio drives Hana and the others back while the rest of them retire to bed. The door to the guestroom firmly shut, Hanzo at last returns to their bedroom to find Genji settling in. “What are you doing here?” 

“Like hell I'm letting you sleep alone.” He struggles with the covers, shoulder still frozen from a bad fall over the winter, but finally seems to get comfortable, his eyes shutting. It's still strange to see the lines in his younger brothers face, his body bent with arthritis, a sliver of youth maintained in the green highlights in his hair. 

“Fine, but you're not staying here forever,” Hanzo replies curtly, feeling no compunction to be polite. He's already in loungewear, so simply slides into his own side, not bothering to remove his prosthetics as Genji has. 

“Of course not,” Genji yawns as the light turns out at a command from Hanzo's phone. “Zenyatta will get randy eventually.” 

Hanzo slowly opens one bleary eye, unable to let that one go. “Are you two still-?” 

“We'll stop when he stops being a dilf, which is apparently never.” 

Hanzo sighs loudly. “I'm not even exasperated, I'm just impressed by your dedication.” 

“You know me, I love exceeding people's low expectations.” Genji chuckles, then reaches back to squeeze his brother's hand. “Goodnight.” 

Hanzo squeezes back and falls into an depleted, restless sleep. 

He wakes up groggy, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. The room is too bright- ah, the blinds, he'd forgotten to close them, and it's another cloudless sky. Jesse used to bring him breakfast on the back porch on days like this- but not anymore. That's over. 

It's all over. 

He'll never eat with Jesse again, never hear him laugh, never argue with him again. Never walk with him or kiss him or ask about his day or hear him sing in the bath or dance with him- 

Hanzo doesn't recognize the animal noise coming from his own throat until Genji sits up in a panic. He cradles Hanzo as he collapses forward, his face in his hands and his body unable to stay upright any longer. He feels Genji's hot tears against his scalp, hears him wheeze between his own agonized sobs. “I'm sorry, anija, I'm so sorry-” 

He has nothing to be sorry for, though he bears most of the responsibility for bringing possibility back into Hanzo's life. It isn't his fault Hanzo fell hopelessly in love with his best friend. 

Genji stays in bed with him all that day, his shoulder a rest for Hanzo's head. Maya brings their dinner on old laptop trays while they lay back against the pillows. He pushes the rice towards his brother when he doesn't move. “You have to eat something.” 

Hanzo shuts his eyes, unable, and Genji reaches out to cradle his aching jaw. He presses a kiss to his scalp and stays close, head tucked against his, holding him together. 

He goes to bed in the same clothes he woke up in, sleeping well past his usual time but forcing himself up. Into clean clothes and into the sun-warmed dining room, where the long cardboard coffin rests atop their table. Hanzo grabs his paints from the antique case in the corner (a Jesse garage sale find, oh god-) and some water from the kitchen, there is much work to do. 

Morbid work, perhaps, but born from those same morbid, middle-aged conversations about Jesse's aging extended family and the inevitable. Jesse wanted three specific things; to leave this world as himself, for everyone to do as much or as little as they wanted, and for the whole affair to cost less than their wedding. 

Considerate to the end, how very him. 

Hanzo works with cushions and a heating pad piled around him, moving around the table and painting vivid, gestural scenes into the stark white. The Southwest where Jesse grew up, Gabe and Jack's house, Jesse's old truck in their old driveway. Even that accursed sandwich shop where they met, now an empty parking lot with grasses creeping up through the cracks. He makes them as beautiful as their memories, with all the colours Jesse loved in life. 

The others come in and out throughout the day, inscribing their love onto the lid in loopy or neat scripts of hirigana, Nepali, Arabic, Hindi, Korean. Amélie even writes something in French when she stops in, carrying a bag filled with artisanal baked goods and a kiss for Hanzo's cheek. “Did you take a cab all the way here?” 

“I did, but not to worry.” She smiles and sweeps his hair back for him, still polished to the tips of her long nails despite age leaving her fragile enough to warrant a retirement home room. “I'll send you the receipt when you get the life insurance payout.” 

Hanzo manages to smile back as Satya enters with more wine. “You're much too kind.” 

Maya stays a while, drawing some minute design along the edge of the lid with his graphic markers. Hanzo finally realizes it's all the crops Jesse grew in their garden, linked by weaving green vines. “That looks good.” 

Maya nods without looking up, nose scrunched up beneath her glasses, not stopping until she's gone all the way around and then jumps straight into dinner prep. 

Despite his suffocating thoughts, he worries for her. Her divorce had already re-upped her workaholism, and a sabbatical spent looking after the four of them was more than any of them had asked. The thought of her losing her id completely in the tending of them is significantly more frightening than the thought of his own death. 

As he finishes off a bed of the same vivid flowers Jesse wore on his back, he notices Genji at the edge of senses, shuffling up behind Maya while she sweats over the range. Though he's shrunk somewhat, Maya is still short enough for him to rest his cheek atop her crown. He wraps his arms around her, fond voice almost a whisper. “You've been such a good help, Aka-chan.” 

“Ah well, everybody's gotta eat, right?” Maya answers in a casual twang, leaving the noodles to boil and calling back to the living room. “Auntie 'Ree, do you need another tea?” At her affirmation, she calls again. “Baba, do you want one?” A long pause. “Baba?” 

“He doesn't have his hearing aids in,” Genji helpfully supplies, arms loosening. 

“Ugh, he never has them in.” Maya turns and flounces off, a dishtowel hanging out of her khakis. 

With the mourners fed and the coffin completed, Zenyatta calls Hanzo into their bedroom after his evening meditation. He draws a simple, sturdy silver chain from his jewellery box and hands it to him. “I noticed that you've been reaching into your pocket a lot, I thought this would be more secure.” 

“Ah, thank you.” Hanzo takes it and threads it through Jesse's wedding band. His fingers have thinned and it no longer fits easily as it once did. 

Once the ring is safe around his neck, Zenyatta places a spindly hand on his knee, smile as bright as ever even as his eyes turn wet. “How lucky we all were, to love and be loved by him.” 

Bless and keep his brother-in-law, he still offers the kindest hugs and the sturdiest shoulders to weep into, not radiating even an ounce of discomfort as he rubs Hanzo's back through their sobs. 

It's so much, too much. He understands his father better now, how he was undone by Taeko's violent, unexpected end. How can anyone go on after this? He feels like he's been rent in two. 

But he does, though he is laid unspeakably low. The funeral home collects the cremation container in the morning and they make the sombre drive in the afternoon. Jesse lays in one of his favourite plaids, a pack of cigarillos tucked in one front pocket and six coins in the other, sans his hat which was willed to Maya. They surround him with so many flowers, as though he were a hero of myth being laid at the foot of a sacred mountain. 

Hanzo kisses his brow once more, but there is nothing left of him there. 

The establishment offers a lovely private room to be utterly miserable in. Olivia opts to stay back with Hana, Lúcio, and the twins as they collect themselves in the parking lot. Satya releases Fareeha after one more strengthening embrace and offers to drive them to their hotel. The rest of them slide silently into Maya's car, her only luxury, sleek and comfortable as it hovers a foot or so above the road. Hanzo watches the scenery go by without taking any of it in, a bus passing overhead and blotting out the sun for a moment. 

All that was Jesse's body sits heavy on his lap, rendered to ash and sealed in a glossy, engraved walnut box. _'Keep me around a while, if you want, just don't let me sit in back of a closet for forty years, Jesus. I can't stand the thought of it.'_

They will be scattered alongside Hanzo's ashes, he's decided. He isn't ready to say goodbye yet. 

“Could you turn the radio up, habibi?” Fareeha's voice sounds a million miles away. 

“Eh? Oh, sure.” Maya taps something on the screen and the car quickly fills with overblown electric guitars and scratchy vocals, a tune that calls up images of endless desert drives in a rented pick-up. _Hiiiighway to hell, I'm on the hiiiighway to hell!_

It's unclear who snorts first, but one of them breaks and the rest follow, clutching their guts as the tears stream. Hanzo is breathless, almost hysterical as they carry on. Maya quickly pulls off to the shoulder. Her words bubble with giggles, so very much like her Dad, as she wipes her eyes on her shirt. “Oof, guys, that was bad, like wrong-bad.” 

“Jesse would have laughed,” Genji insists, a bittersweet warmth in his voice as he crosses his arms. “Actually, I'm willing to blame him for that one. There's no way that was a coincidence.” 

“I always knew he'd be a pain in the ass as a ghost.” Fareeha snickers, letting her head rest against the window as they merge back into traffic. “He warned us and he delivered.” 

“If he haunts the house, I'll be so mad.” Maya drums her fingers rhythmically on the steering wheel, snorting to herself. “Watch him float through the wall like 'Don't cheap out on the toilet paperrrrr.'” 

Another, lighter fit of laughter. The strangeness of it seems unimportant. No one else is around to judge them, anyways. 

“We should pour one out for him tonight, a little toast.” 

“That's a wonderful idea, dear.” Zen turns to glance back at Hanzo. “Do we still have that good sake of yours? I could do with a sip, quite honestly.” 

Hanzo nods and Genji grumbles, half-joking. “No fair, I can't have any because of my goddamn meds.” 

“Then split a ginger ale with me, you big baby.” Fareeha elbows him, jostling Hanzo in turn. He closes his eyes, tightens his grip on the urn. He'll try to do what Jesse asked of him, he isn't quite ready to break their family's hearts a second time. Though to have the opportunity at all is a privilege of sorts, one he never used to imagine for himself. 

That does not make the vast emptiness easier to fill. Hanzo feels as a soda can must at the bottom of ocean, surrounded by darkness and pressure on all sides. Smiling one minute and choking the next, sleep refuses to come that night. Eventually he sits up and grabs hold of Jesse's serape, folded neatly on the nightstand. He clings to the scent within and tries to burn it into the front of his mind, onto his very soul. 

He was nothing less than remarkable, Hanzo can only hope his life was all that it could be and more. Jesse deserved nothing less than a thousand years of happiness. 

“Mmf?” Genji groans when Hanzo begins pulling on his legs. “Where're you going?” 

“Just getting some fresh air.” Hanzo smooths a hand through his little brother's stiff white-and-green hair. “Go back to sleep.” 

Genji hums, already dropping off again. He still splays out like a baby while he's dreaming, Hanzo doesn't know how Zenyatta puts up with it, but it is a bit cute. 

The serape is warm and rough around his shoulders, and the urn fits neatly inside his robe, tucked against his sternum. He tries not to bang his cane too loudly, lest he wake Maya on the sofa bed or Fareeha and Satya in her basement suite. 

Except Maya is out in the garden, sitting on the handmade wooden bench they received as a housewarming gift from the Shambali, legs kicked out and her phone held before her. A holographic cupcake glows blue in the dim, its candle flickering until Maya blows it out. A chorus of voices cheers through the screen, they must be her labmates. 

“Thanks, guys! Don't work too hard! G'night!” Maya chuckles, waving rapidly to the screen until it clicks off. Not a second passes before she tips forward, sobbing messily into her hands. 

Hanzo joins her quickly, the two of them folding into each other. No point in pretending to be strong, no need to feign indifference to the profound ache in their chests, and nothing but compassion in his voice for the youngest of their household. The one who's done the most and swallowed the most and shouldered more than her fair share. “I'm so sorry, Maya. Uncle Jesse wouldn't have ruined your birthday if he could have helped it.” 

“Oh, pft, I don't care about that!” Maya shoves her glasses up onto her head, sweeping the tears from her puffy eyes. “Birthdays are whatever, they come around every year.” 

Hanzo hums low, rubbing her back. “Still, we could use a little good cheer. Maybe we can go out for dinner tomorrow. You deserve a day off from chef duty, at least.” 

Their niece shakes her head quickly, waving the idea off. “Don't worry about it, there's no need for all that fuss.” 

There, another lilt of Jesse in her voice. As often as he claimed he didn't know what to do with kids, she was drawn to him from the beginning. Crawling onto his lap and following him around, singing along with him in the car and the kitchen. He was always so patient, so sweet with her. 

Hanzo sighs and combs his fingers through her hair, clipped and coming to a barely-manageable floof on top, so much like Genji's. “You are your fathers' daughter, stubbornness and pride-” 

“Really, Oji-san?” Maya snorts suddenly, shooting a grin at him. “You really travelled all the way to the tens and came back with that reference?” 

Hanzo shrugs, a mock defiance in his slight smile. “What can I say? You made us watch it so often, I practically know it by heart.” 

“Hey, there were much worse obsessions I could have subjected you to, be grateful.” Maya rests her elbows on her knees, swinging her feet in the dewy midnight grass. 

Hanzo runs his fingers just above her ear, revealing silver streaks beneath the top layer. “Ah, you're going grey.” 

“Pretty sure I'm already gone,” Maya replies, eyes on her toes. “I'm forty-five after all, officially.” 

Hanzo reels quite genuinely for a second, his mouth rushing ahead of him. “My god, when did you get so old?” 

Maya glances up at him, full lips pulling tight to one side. “Uh, Oji-san, I know you're grieving and everything, but that was kinda rude.” 

Hanzo laughs, in spite of everything, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Sorry, I just- I think you were in kindergarten when I was that age. It's all gone so fast.” 

“See, I want to make fun of you for that, but now with Iris and Elle-” Maya's attention flips back to her phone when it blares a tune she's attached to the girls now called her own. “Oh, right on cue. They have to be up at dawn, why aren't they in bed?” 

Hanzo smiles, guessing they'll be as receptive to that question as a college-age Maya once was. None of them really decided which gifts they gave her- Genji's laugh, Zenyatta's sweetness, the cant of Jesse's voice, Hanzo's single-mindedness -which parts of them will be passed on, as stories or unconscious habits. In the end, he supposes all they can hope is that their love will live on, that their memories will cause her freckled cheeks to bunch into a smile, or her daughters to make slightly better decisions than they did. 

He leaves one hand on her back, curling the other tight across the urn, bringing Jesse that much closer to him. A warmth spills into his heart, spreading through the whole of him and solidifying next to his bones. Not fear, not pain, only a presence, one he's been surrounded with all along. As real and necessary as the chilled nighttime air in their lungs. 

“Oh wow, look at the stars,” Maya says softly, as if she's afraid to spook them away. “Man, I love it out here.” 

Hanzo turns his eyes up, still brimming with warmth, Jesse's ashes held close to his chest as he takes it in. The hazy blue darkness shines with spring galaxies, a million pinpricks that swirl across the endless curve of the sky and blanket their little farmhouse in an inimitable stretch of infinity. A dance of graceful planets and unexplored constellations, all for them. “It's so beautiful.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I'm sorry   
> 2\. I'm REALLY sorry, I cried while writing this so direct your tears straight to me, no one else.   
> 3\. If you found the morbid humour moments off-putting, my apologies, but I pulled from my own sad morbid moments throughout my life. Nothing is absurd as death, and us humans have to cope somehow.   
> 4\. The bit at the end with Hanzo holding Jesse's ashes close is meant to parallel the first scene in 'Crush' where Jesse pulls Hanzo onto his lap, because this wasn't sad enough already.   
> 5\. If you chose to read all this way- thank you, I've had this story in mind for at least a year, I wanted to show a glimpse of how their lives went on long after the main setting of the series.   
> This was really important for me to write and I appreciate each and every one of you who read, enjoyed, and left kudos and comments. That I've been able to share my little universe with all of you has been so wonderful. Tomorrow is the two-year anniversary of me posting the very first part to this 'verse and I can hardly believe it. I still have some side-stories in me (Amelie needs a little more love, for one), but I'll dip into other fics for a while and let this story rest. I did my big gushy thank-you in the last part, but I just want to wish you all the best and hope that you're doing okay, or that you will be soon, much love <3 
> 
> _"There are no happy endings...because nothing ends."-Peter S. Beagle, 'The Last Unicorn'_


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